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Fri 30 May 2008

How can I reuse or recycle unwanted hairspray?

Categories: bathroom, household, items

The post about hair gel last month reminded me that I’ve got an almost full canister of hairspray in the back of our bathroom cupboard.

I bought it way back in the day one summer when I was trying everything and anything to try to stop my curls turning instantly to frizz. It didn’t work so was relegated to the cupboard of forgotten toiletries.

I don’t know anyone else that uses spray - all by friends either have shaved heads or prefer their hair to move instead of being rock solid - so 1980s-theme parties aside, I won’t be able to find a good home for it that way. But the responses to the hair gel suggestion made me wonder if it could be used as an adhesive or something like that instead. Anyone know?

Or anyone got any other suggestions?

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at school i seem to remember it was used as a fixing spray for chalk art work, so it didn’t smudge

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Yup. Works well as a fixative. It may contain substances that will speed up the ageing of the paper, so I wouldn’t use it on anything you want to keep for years and years, but other than that it’s great for pencil sketches and chalk.

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Use it to remove ball point pen stains. Works!

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It can also be used as a fixative for just about anything else you would use art fixative for — I used some on printable CDs that had come through an ink-jet printer that left the ink a little smeary.

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Hair spray kills spiders!

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We use hairspray as a fixative when we go camping - we spray it onto the (cooled) fragile mantles that sit inside our gas lamp to make it glow. The mantles always used to break on the next leg of the car journey, but now they survive the trip completely intact!

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I think you can use it (lightly) on clothes such as dresses to stop them “flying away” if they are a little floaty.

Also for bikini bottoms to stop them riding up

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when I’m drying roses or other flowers, I will spray them with hair spray before I hang them upside down.. it keeps the petals from falling off..

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Use it to fix the rubber handlebar grips to you bike/quad etc. Brilliant especially in wet weather.

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If you have any horsey friends who compete - you could give it to them - they use it to hold in plaits in horse manes and tails.

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I’ve used hair spray on the bottom of my sneakers when playing basketball. Our coach would keep a bottle. That would help your feet from slipping on some floors.

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i use old hairspray all the time to avoid buying fixative, i saw that somebody posted that before. but just to elaborate- its great with pencil drawings or maybe old newspapers you want to preserve

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If you wear make up, spray it over your eyes after you’ve put it on.

Obviously, close your eyes first, this keeps the makeup intact

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I use it to kill houseflies that stray into my home. So I guess it works as bug spray!

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Sounds odd, but when I was a kid we’d use it to set things like sand or salt maps on prodjects.

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List it on your local Freecycle group. Someone will come get it.

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My father uses it in his cellar to keep the labels from falling off his wine bottles.

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